Robert Downey Jr. Talks 'Iron Man 3,' Don Cheadle & More
May 3rd can't come soon enough. And so to tide cinephiles over, Robert Downey Jr. gives us a sneak peak at Iron Man 3. Details after the jump.
Director Shane Black reunites with his Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang star for the third installment of the popular Iron Man series. In it, Downey, who is currently the #1 box office hero in Hollywood, reprises his role as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark and faces his worst foe in The Mandarin.
Entertainment Weekly sat down with the charismatic 47-year-old actor to talk about his latest project, what cinephiles can expect in the Marvel action-adventure pic, and speaks on his co-star Don Cheadle in glowing terms.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I'm curious if Shane's arrival changes any of the fundamental approach to action scenes?
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: We’ve just been talking about one sequence – the top-secret name is the Boot/Glove Sequence, I can tell you that, just between you and me – it’s where Tony only has one gauntlet and one boot and he has to escape multiple captors. It’s really fun, dude. We’re taking everything from his first gauntlet test in the first movie up through the most extreme stuff we thought up for Iron Man 2 and The Avengers and pulling on all of it and making this one big, extended challenge of physics.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There are some new faces coming in to the franchise: Guy Pearce, James Badge Dale, Rebecca Hall, and of course, Ben Kingsley as the villain, the Mandarin. And then there's the returning ensemble with Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, and Jon Favreau. Circle one of those names and tell us something they brought to the project.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: Since I was just talking about Flight and Don is on my mind, I’ll start with him. Rhodey is much more in the dead center of things. He’s much more dynamic. We’ve made this decision that while Tony is a technical guy, he’s not really a trained guy. There’s a lot of fun to be had with Don because he’s really good with hardware and he’s a martial artist, so it’s been really fun exploiting this possibility of Tony having moments like the one in Avengers, like the one with Cap where he decides, “Oh screw it, he probably knows what he’s doing.” So there’s a lot of that and a lot more fun and a lot more depth to Rhodey this time around.
Iron Man 3 is slated to hit theaters on May 3rd, but the five-part interview with Robert Downey Jr. could see some interesting spoilers for Avengers 2. We'll keep you posted as more develops.
Props: Inside Movies/EW
